Social Media Use: A Poll Study using Instagram

Social media is a platform used to communicate, share, create, exchange information and many more with others. Social media is used everyday now to communicate and connect with others. Social media can have a positive and negative impact depending on how people use it. When people use it right and to connect and communicate with others, it is used in a good way meaning that social media has a positive impact. When using it the wrong way or using it too much, it can make you addicted to social media which then could be bad and can make you isolated from reality.

Keeping that in mind, we conducted a poll of questions related to social media. We conducted our poll on Instagram stories so that it would be easier for viewers to answer and interact. Our goal was to see if people have become addicted to social media and in their opinion if social media is good for our future or not. We analysed the data from 44 respondents; however, for some questions, we only received 43 responses.

The first question of our poll was “Do you use social media more than 2-5 hours a day?”  because according to a study “59% of the world’s population uses social media and the average daily usage is 2 hours and 31 minutes” (Chaffey, 2023). In our poll, out of 44 people, 43 (98%) answered YES and only 1 (2%) answered NO. This means that a lot of people could be using social media for a much longer period.

The second question was “What social media do you use the most?” and the options were Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Out of 44 people, 28 chose TikTok (64%), 14 chose Instagram (32%), 1 chose Twitter (2%), and 1 chose WhatsApp (2%). Our poll shows that one of the most used social media apps is TikTok as most people (64%) chose TikTok. This is because TikTok is the most popular social media and the most used among teenagers and adults. Almost everything is on TikTok like news, trendy stuff, outfit inspiration, and more.

The third question was, “How do you usually spend your time when you are not on social media?” We have the option of watching television, reading a book, or hanging out. Most of the respondents preferred to hang out (61%), which has 25 votes.  In second place it was watching TV (27%), which has 11 votes, and the last one they prefer is read a book (12%) which have 5 votes. We think that 61% of people chose hanging out because social media is a way of communication for people.

The fourth question was “Do you think social media is good for us and the future?” In response, out of 38 people, 34 (89%) chose YES and 4 (11%) chose NO. To elaborate more on this question, we posted another additional question that is “if yes why? If no why?” A lot of the respondents answered Yes because they think that social media can help them be more aware and provide more information, along with serving as a platform for socializing and connecting with others. One of the respondents answered, “everything is on social media,” which represents the current content of social media which includes updated news, current trends, and more information about everything. Social media is easy to be accessed by everyone and all the information shared on social media can also be shared by everyone.

The last question was “Do you think social media is part of your daily needs?”. Out of 35 people, 33 choose Yes (94%) and 2 people choose NO (6%). That means people use social media on a daily basis, and it has already become a part of people’s daily needs. It will not be an exaggeration if we say that people depend on social media a lot these days. One of the respondents answered, “because most people I talk to are not in reachable distance which is why social media helps a lot”, which shows that people connect with each other using social media, even the ones who are thousands of miles away. Without social media, it is hard to talk to cousins, friends, or family who live far away. This is one of the example of why people might think that social media is part of daily needs.

In conclusion, most people may use social media 2-5 hours a day, which then could lead to addiction but based on the poll and the response of the respondent, most people use social media to get updates, share information, socialize, and connect with others because now it is easier to do that because there is social media. Social media have everything and it is already proven by the respondent of the polls and how most of them said that social media is a part of daily needs.

Authors:

Annaka Adaisya Sudiro

Fannisa Widya Puteri

Felicia Syifara Zalika Gunandar

Edited by: Annapurna Sinha